Gaming PC Build

sora

Magical Girl
Looking to buy a gaming with a £500 budget, at the moment I have these parts in mind will they work? or does anyone have a better build for the price?

AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz Socket AM3+ 14MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor - £65.17


Sapphire R9 280 DUAL-X 3GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card - £116.65


MSI 970A-G43 Socket AM3+ 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard - £41.65


Crucial Ballistix Sport - DDR3 - 8 GB - SO DIMM 204-pin - 1600 MHz / PC3-12800 - CL9 - unbuffered - non-ECC - £48.53


HDD Scorpio BLUE 1TB 2.5 SATA HDD - £43.40


Corsair CX 500W Fully Wired 80+ Bronze Power Supplly - £39.70


NZXT Source 210 Elite White Case - £31.05
 
I would suggest that you not use a laptop hard drive for a gaming system since the slower spin speed and slower average seek time in comparison to the caviar blue range could hamper gameplay (also the caviar blue 1TB hard drive is cheaper then the scorpio blue 1TB hard drive), but you would be better off getting a solid state hard drive if you want the best possible speed out of the system (a SSHD would be the second best option if you can't afford a high capacity solid state hard drive).
 
Don't buy a corsair CX. They are utter garbage, not worth the money & can wreck your system. They're made cheap by a 3rd party. I have had bad experiences with these in builds.

The power supply is the most important part of your PC.

Spend a little more and grab a seasonic branded or antec true power (also made by seasonic). I think an ideal PSU for your build would be an Antec true power 550w gold efficiency.


Edit: Also don't forget cooling. Very important on an amd system. Stick a couple of decent fans in there (i like using 12-14cm akasa vipers) you'll need intake & outtake & try to get a positive airflow. The fans that'll come with the case probably won't be much good.
 
What sort of gaming are you looking to do (medium, high etc what resolution and fps) and how long do you want this to last?

Looking at your spec could you include the price of the components and I'll get back to you tomorrow (time depending).
 
Thanks for the suggestions guys will switch some parts around.

@britguy Updated the prices in the post
I would like to run the games at medium - High settings in 1080p as long as they don't lag Ill be fine, Games i am looking to play are dark souls, skyrim, final fantasy, naruto, day Z and some others would also like to be able to play ps2 and GC emulators.
 
Ok, looking at your specs and the requirements you should be fine with regards to CPU and GPU, just know that you're not building a machine that will run games from say 2014 onwards in high at 1080p well. Any reason why you're going AMD instead of Intel, is it the price factor?

Regarding the HDD this is the one I've got, it's got a faster RPM, igger cacher and Sata 6gb vs the 3gb the drive you have selected, and it's also cheaper.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/1TB-SATA-lll-De ... B+WD10EZEX

Emulation (Wii, Gamecube and PS2) is pretty CPU sensitive but looking round you should be fine with this CPU.
 
You'll probably be able to get away with most mid Size and above cases. You need to take into consideration the motherboard size and the length of the graphics card. I have a corsair 200r. Serviceable and does the job.
 
Cool. Just for reference heres my build if you want to look at parts. This was my first build last feb and loved doing it.

You will likely be priced out by cpu and gpu but the other parts are probably in your pricing structure.

Looking at your ram are you going for one single stick? Id recommend 2 4gb running dual channel over 1 8gb. Much better for the system.


Motherboard Gigabyte Z87x D3H
Processor Intel i5 4670K
Video Card 3GB Gigabyte Radeon R9 280X OC WINDFORCE
RAM Corsair Vengeance Jet Black 2x4GB
HDD 1TB WD10EZEX
OS Windows 8.1 64Bit
PSU Cooler Master G Series 650w
Optical Drive Samsung 24x DVD Writer
Case Corsair Carbide Series 200R
Monitor Iiyama Prolite E2483HS-B 24" Monitor
Second Screen Samsung LE32C530 32” HDTV
Speakers Logitech LS21 2.1 Speakers
Keyboard and Mouse Gigabyte KM7580 Wireless Keyboard and Mouse Set
Game Pad Official Xbox 360 Common Controller for Windows
 
Been looking today and changed a few things

Motherboard MSI 970A-G43
Processor AMD FX6300
Video Card Sapphire R9 280 DUAL-X 3GB GDDR5
Ram Corsair CML8GX3M2A1600C9 Vengeance Low Profile 8GB (2x4GB)
HDD WD 500GB Caviar Blue Hard Drive
PSU Still need to decide on a PSU
Case Corsair Carbide Series 200R

Now need some advice on a Cooler to use so I can overclock any recommendations?
 
Seeing as you're going to be overclocking i'd highly recommend a 600w PSU. Your current load looks like it comes to just under 450 but when you factor in USB devices and potential DVD drives etc and overclocking you're looking at closer to 500w and it's better to go higher just incase you decide to upgrade say the GPU or add a blu-ray drive or something in future.
 
Wont be using a dvd drive, will just be downloading games and wont be upgrading the GPU for a while so would a 500w suffice for now?
 
If you're going to overclock you definitely need to make sure your cooling is up to scratch. You didn't list a third party heatsink/fan, were you going to overclock with the stock heatsink on? Been a while since I used AMD as Intel just outclass them now if you can spend the extra but they always did run hot even at stock.

As Britguy says, having a bit of extra wattage to play around with isn't a bad thing, especially as your power supply unit will start to degrade and drop watts over the years. The closer you are to the maximum the more strain it will put on the PSU as well so it will degrade at a faster rate.

I always go for the gold rated psu's now as they balance quality & price nicely, don't be fooled by bronze rated because a bronze rating is very easy to get now (hence the cx models) the CXM750 is made by a different company to the rest of the range if i remember rightly but you'll be wasting a lot of extra power as heat and I'd still recommend you look into seagate made power supplies which will be in the same bracket (some companies like OCZ & Antec use them in some models.) A poorly made psu can cause system instability and irreversible parts damage, yet it seems to be the most commonly skimped on thing in my experience.

Edit: £50.80 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Antec-True-Powe ... antec+550w only 1 left but more on the way. If it's not in check under other sellers and amazon.co.uk's store.
 
Just so you know, there is a black variant of the case in your first post so there isn't any need to change that part.

Edit: Also you will need a DVD drive as unless you have access to another computer to create a bootable USB drive it is required to install the operating system, and you will need a better cooler since you are planning on doing some overclocking (you have at least put a black edition CPU into your list since a non black edition CPU doesn't have an unlocked multiplier and can't be overclocked as far as I know) and unless things have changed since I last heard the arctic cooling freezer range is the best place to start (everyone was raving about that range of CPU coolers many moons ago).
 
If you do go for an aftermarket CPU Cooler make sure the case has clearance for it. Having the pipes touching the side of the case isn't a good idea and you can't cut them down.

Also you need to think about your fan placement. Where will you have your intake fans? Where will you have your outtakes? What could obstruct the fan mounts on the case both internally and where you're putting it?

A lot of cases have fronts that don't allow for an intake fan, having one on the side door where you open it (like the cases you were looking at) may not fit with your cpu cooler &/or graphics card, you could leave it off as a way for a horizontal (low profile) cpu cooler to push air out but they don't really perform that well compared to vertical stacks.

A bottom intake works well provided it will fit & blows air straight into the graphic's card's fans but can pick up a lot of dust and throw it into the case if it isn't filtered (especially on non-carpeted surfaces) A front intake works best if there's not too much in the way of it and the fan is decent.

Top & rear are the main places for outtake fans unless the PSU is in the top of the case then you can fit an outtake below it, & you can have a top intake but the airflow isn't the best.

Sorry for posting so much, it's just all things to consider when building, best to plan before even if it seems more daunting it's better than running into problems during the build, that'll really put you off.

I forgot to ask. Do you have any PC building experience or is this your first build?


edit:
demonix said:
last heard the arctic cooling freezer range is the best place to start

Cooler master Hyper 212 evo is the most popular budget cooler now due to it's performance. You need to make sure you have the case clearance for it though.
 
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